After We Grow Up
by lankree
Summary: Even Superheroes need saving, that's why there are so many of them. But nothing can save them from growing up. Robin POV.


Titans Go.

Robin POV

The first one to grow up and leave the Teen Titans was Raven. None of us saw that coming. None of us begrudge her for that, she didn't leave us as a shattered four piece with her exit. In truth, the Titans had become a number nearly uncountable… okay, so there is only about forty of us, but forgive me for my penchant for the dramatic. Raven was nineteen when she left. She applied to a university in New York and got in with a full scholarship. She studied literature, Dean's listed, and was a regular contributor to the school's major newspaper. I think that's how she met her husband.

It came to a shock to all of us that Raven was the first to marry. She got married at twenty-one, a half year before she graduated. Her husband's name was Neji; they met at a special seminar about the historical preservation of kin groups, or something like that. Neji was an exchange student from Japan, studying Cultural Anthropology. After he met Raven, he decided to stay in country. From their pictures and three kids by their fifth year of marriage, I'm sure he made the right choice.

They were married for forty-eight years before Raven died of heart failure in her sleep.

Of those remaining four from when Raven left the tower, Vic, Gar, Kori, me, it was anybody's guess who would leave next. Turns out, it was me… but I'll get back to me later.

The third to go was apparently Garfield. He left three years after me, two years after Raven, when he was twenty one. He sort of disappeared for a while before he resurfaced as the head of another Titans-esque group. Crime fighting was in his blood more than mine. Gar became a globetrotting superhero… he was never the kind to settle down. He married a normal woman; she liked to laugh and had a pretty smile. Her name was Celine and she survived him with two sons who were both grown when Gar died in an accident when he was fifty-five.

Kori left maybe days after Gar. I really don't know for sure, I didn't do my part to keep up. She became a model. She was the kind of pretty meant for flashing lights and glittering lip gloss. She was on tons of magazines and advertisements, the fact that she was alien bothered a few people, but not enough to stop her from rising to the top.

Kori married a Tameranian man, lived out her life on Tameran. She had a son, but I never met him, never met her husband either. She had sent me and all of us an invitation, but just like with Raven's wedding, I politely declined. Those types of things were never my style. Kori died of old age at about 67. There was a Tameranian morning ceremony… I didn't go to that either.

Vic… well, he never really left the tower. I mean he got married to Sara, but every few years he just kept coming back. He'd check on things, call them all idiots and "show 'em how it's done"… The cries of "Booyah" echo in the tower as a tribute to him forever. Victor had two kids and married twice. The second wife gave him both sons and the three of them mourned together when Vic's technology finally became obsolete. After fifty three years of sustaining him, when we was the age of sixty nine, his system failed for the last time and the stone man never booted back up.

That's why I'm the last. I don't have much time, this I know. I'm seventy one, if I were to have made it another week, in this pitiful state its better than I haven't, but had I made it, I will have died on the three year anniversary of Vic's death. It's June and I'm laying in a hospital bed by myself. I'm going to die by myself. I never married, I had plenty of lovers, but no children came from any of it. Bruce is still alive, but he won't make it here to see me again before I pass away today.

As for my life, it was long and guided by a mysterious eating cause that Bruce called justice, I called it servitude. I couldn't get the vigilante business from out of my skin. I changed face, made legendary actions and was the source of about two dozen broken hearts. I could have married Barbara, but I'm not the marrying type. I never found out if I was the father type… I missed out on a lot of things. But I really don't think I have any regrets…

It surprised me that I lasted the longest… everyone was much happier than I was, they all deserved more time. But as it is, things happen for a reason. Raven suffered in her childhood to experience great joy in her later years. Gar grew up into the man he'd been shaking to be since he was in the Doom Patrol. Vic found two women who didn't care about his uniqueness and he loved them both as much as they loved him. Kori found that thing that she was looking for. Whatever it was, she found it, really and truly.

And me, I guess I just didn't want to die young. I'm old, not just in years, but memories… it's been far too long since I've made any good friends, the way I did with those four.

I can smile and cough and wheeze in my last breath and none of it scares me.

I'm going to see them again, the way we were when we were young, colors proud and obnoxious, heroes and comrades and protectors… all of us together…

Titans Go.

End


End file.
